Everything You Need To Know About The ‘Captain Underpants’ Movie

DreamWorks blessed EW with a first look at Captain Underpants, an upcoming animated movie based on Dav Pilkey’s popular book series. This came out of the blue for most people, myself included but it was a nice surprise. I grew up with these books and I hope the film does the books justice!

The animated Captain Underpants follows George Beard (Kevin Hart) and Harold Hutchins (Thomas Middleditch), two fourth graders who hypnotize their imperious principal (Ed Helms) into stripping down, tying a curtain around his neck, and declaring himself Earth’s newest defender.

“[Helms] has managed to tap into the sheer stupidity of Captain Underpants,” director David Soren told EW. “He’s a delusional superhero who thinks he’s got all kinds of powers and has literally zero ability beyond just that of a middle-aged man.”

Since the original Captain Underpants was published in 1997, Pilkey has written 13 books and 3 spin-offs about the captain’s adventures, so it wasn’t hard to choose which villain they were going to use. In the end, they went with Professor Poopypants (voiced by Nick Kroll). “I mean, with a name like that, he’s kind of irresistible,” Soren said.

“The lovely thing is that we have two creative boys at the center of this thing, so anything they dream up really is something we can just lean into heavily,” Soren says. “It constantly keeps the story feeling like it’s been made by two fourth graders, as opposed to me.”

Directed by David Soren (Turbo) and based on a script by Nick Stoller (The Muppets).